Spring Break Bucket List, Sunday Store Update & Sale

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!  I need to remember to wear green today, don't want to be pinched!!

Today I'm linking up with Brigid to let you in on my bucket list for Spring Break.  I still have 9 school days left until Spring Break... not that I'm counting or anything... ha ha!  Yeah, like none of us are counting!! :)

Okay - here's my plan for break:

1.  Drive to Pismo Beach with the family...

We love to go for part of our break.  We stay at the Sea Gypsy Motel.  It is directly on the beach.  I've stayed at that same hotel my entire life...   

2.  I will walk every morning on this beach and on this pier.  

3.  I will go shopping on this main street... they have a magically delicious frozen yogurt place about 1/2 way down the street.  This is about a 3 minute walk from the hotel.  


4.  I will most likely eat at Splash's Cafe, Giuseppe's Cucina Italiana, and Old West Cinnamon Rolls sometime during our stay...

5. ...and will most likely go with my mom and my sister to shop at the outlets.

 

6.  We will also take the boys to the Dinosaur Park - it overlooks the ocean.  :)

7.  I will also spend a lot of time reading.

8.  I should probably do some laundry... or some cleaning... or some organizing... or some grocery shopping when we get back home.

9.  If I get inspired, I might create some more things for my class and for TPT.

Of course there is a chance that none of #8 or #9 will get accomplished... :)  

Sunday Store Update:

Here are the things I've added to the store since last Sunday.  Thanks to All Things Upper Elementary and Mrs. Wheeler for the adorable buttons!  Mrs. Wheeler is having a linky party - so check it out! Everything is still 20% off the rest of today.    

Main Idea Caterpillar

Gnome Activity Templates

California Regions

ELA Review Example Book

Have a great day.  

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Main Idea Caterpillar FREEBIE!

Before I dive into sharing what my class did the other day, I wanted to remind you about my 20% off TPT sale that is going on this weekend.  Happy Shopping!

Our lesson the other day was on main idea and supporting details. We are getting ready for the district writing test and needed to review finding author's lesson...

First we went through all the stories so far in our anthology and the kids brainstormed the theme/lesson the author was trying to teach us.

From there the kids chose a story, took a caterpillar body and wrote out the main idea. They looked in the texts and found supporting details to back up their conclusions.

We turned them into 2 caterpillars hanging over the windows.  The girls wanted pink, the boys wanted blue... I needed 2 of them since space was an issue to hang 32 of them...

This is free in my store. I hope it helps someone!

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Five for Friday

Five for Friday! Today I'm linking up again with Doodlebugs Teaching to share my 5 random things from this week.

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1. Son's birthday

I can't believe my oldest son is now 9!  He's an awesome kid - so caring, responsible, and smart.  I'm biased - though I am totally being truthful too.  

2. Spring Fever Sale this weekend over at TPT.  I'm joining up with other shop owners to give 20% off all my products.  :)  

3.  You wonder why I have a picture of a fire extinguisher...  Well, on Wednesday my students learned the importance of NOT putting a quarter into a surge protector.  The story goes that somehow this quarter "happened" to fall/bounce/plant itself in between the speaker plug and the surge protector.  This was in the morning during writing workshop... a kid brings over this burned/melted quarter to show me, just says for me to look at the quarter... doesn't tell me that it happened in the classroom, or that there was a spark, or that the surge protector clicked off, or that the fuse and everything electrical in the classroom wasn't working... just that this child wanted me to look at the quarter (which I see many random things during the day, so I didn't think anything of it).  It wasn't until later that I saw everything else, and wasn't until I pulled in the principal that the kids decided to tell the story...  They said they didn't want to bother me during writing workshop... They have learned that if there is ever a spark it is VERY important to let their teacher know.  Wednesday was a very long day.  

4.  Spring Weather

We've had high 70's and 80's this week.  I love the weather, but I'm not a fan of how warm my classroom gets or the onset of allergies.  I wish I could bring in a fan - my little metal portable feels like an oven!  The AC is not working up to it's potential!

5. Scholastic Books

I had to put in an order yesterday and I realized that Scholastic had tons of books for $1 at the moment.  Nevermind the fact that I already have 9 class sets of books that I have bought over the years, I bought 3 more using bonus points.  I'm addicted to buying books. 

Okay everyone - go link up!

    

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Game Board Templates = End of Unit Fun!

We finished up the end of Unit 4 this week in reading - so it was time to review vocabulary. I gave the kids the option of how to review by letting them choose what game template they wanted to use. Everyone had the same 15 vocabulary words (we did this over 2 days - so 30 words total).

The options I gave them were playing GNOME (like bingo), 

scrabbling the words, 

creating a hide the word drawing, 

making a board game, and creating a word search. 

They chose their specific activities and after they created their templates, worked with others (switched papers to complete the activities) to review the meanings of the specific words in the templates. They had fun!

This is over in my store if you are interested.

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